Like smoke on the horizon Like ash at my feet Like grey soot and bony plants I am afraid. Like cryptic messages passed from hand to hand Like acrid liquor in my throat Like heat in my belly, growing I am afraid. Succulent fruit, lush and sweet Are your promises. Like smoke in my mouth Like…

“Weathered faces crusted with white paste, they hunch like specters over the fire stones and blackened pot; perhaps they will rise and, in dead silence, perform the slow dance of the sennin–wild mountain sages of the ancient days in China and Japan who give no formal teaching but redeem all beings by the very purity of…